In order to promote greater safety of conventional intercity and commuter railroads which operate on the general railroad system with other trains including freight trains, the federal government has promulgated regulations governing passenger rail safety. Nevertheless, train operators unions have pushed for higher safety passenger railcar designs since they felt that the train operators where exposed in case of a collision with a freight locomotive. Indeed, in many commuter railcar designs, the train operator cab is placed right at the front of the railcar, being protected only by vertical beams, called corner posts, and collision posts.
Alternate designs of a cab end of passenger railcars have been proposed. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,900,565 to Bravo discloses a passenger railcar using a crash energy management module at the cab end of the vehicle, in front of the corner posts and collision posts. This provides additional energy absorption and further protects the train operator. However, there are a few drawbacks with this design. For one, the disclosed crash energy management module uses energy absorbers that may be exposed to high lateral loads in case of a crash with some locomotives like the ones known as the F40, MP40 and F59. These locomotives all have a pointed front end that can intrude between the energy absorbers disclosed by Bravo and pushes them sideways, making them less efficient in absorbing energy.
Moreover, conventional cab end design uses two vertical collision posts, extending from a floor of the railcar to its roof, that are located between the vertical corner posts. The train operator is typically seated on one side or another, between one corner post and one collision post. Although providing adequate protection for the train operator, this design restricts his field of view.
There is therefore a need for a better design of a crash structure for the cab end of a railcar.